Quentin Tarantino names the biggest directorial inspirations on ‘Reservoir Dogs’
In the eyes of many, Quentin Tarantino’s arrival in the early 1990s marked the dawn of a new era in American independent cinema. With his acclaimed yet controversial 1992 debut Reservoir Dogs, the young writer-director was widely hailed as a bold, maverick filmmaker, the likes of which hadn’t been seen in Hollywood for quite some time.
Yet while some may have considered Tarantino a singular cinematic radical with a distinctive voice and disregard for the rules, which was all his own, it was also widely noted that the young upstart wore his influences on his sleeve. It soon became part of Tarantino’s legend that, rather than going to film school, he learned everything about the art simply from watching movies, notably whilst working behind the counter of rental store Video Archives in Manhattan Beach, California.
To his credit, Tarantino has never been coy when it comes to admitting how much his work owes to other filmmakers. In a 1993 Filmmaker magazine interview, Tarantino identified the key influences on his first film in conversation with fellow director Alexandre Rockwell – who, like Tarantino, made a splash at the 1992 Sundance Film Festival with his film In the Soup (which also happens to feature Reservoir Dogs actor Steve Buscemi).
Tarantino declared: “I really took my cue from Jean-Pierre Melville, his crime thrillers in the ’50s. And John Woo and his cohorts in Hong Kong. I like the idea of working in a genre almost to reinvent it, to stretch it out of shape. Sergio Leone, when he did the spaghetti westerns, created something there was never before. Melville did the same thing with crime films. John Woo, through sheer genius, is basically doing that with crime films again.”
Director of influential crime dramas such as 1962’s Le Doulos and 1967’s Le Samouraï, Melville was one of the key figures in the French New Wave—a movement of filmmakers who delighted in casting aside conventions of film formula, much as Tarantino would years later.
The influence of Melville and other French New Wave directors was immediately apparent to critics and cineastes, not least as Tarantino had named his production company A Band Apart, in homage to Jean-Luc Goddard’s 1964 film Bande à part, which Tarantino declares “my favourite Godard film”.
Moreover, the influence of both Melville and John Woo is clear in Reservoir Dogs from the costumes alone, as both filmmakers tend to favour men in sharp, simple suits. In Woo’s case, this was particularly notable in 1987’s A Better Tomorrow II, whose climax sees a slew of men in black suits wind up drenched in blood, similar to how Reservoir Dogs‘ ensemble looks by the end.
Another Hong Kong production, Ringo Lam’s 1987 thriller City on Fire, was also quickly noted as a direct influence on Reservoir Dogs. A number of key moments of gun violence—not least a climactic Mexican standoff—appear to have been lifted almost directly by Tarantino.
International interest in Woo’s films skyrocketed after Tarantino and other Western filmmakers like Tony Scott praised the Hong Kong director’s work. This paved the way for Woo’s brief but impactful run as a Hollywood filmmaker, with hits such as 1997’s Face/Off and 2000’s Mission: Impossible II.
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